Back in January, YouTube announced that it was launching around 160 channels of fresh, original content, that it would invest in to help it compete with traditional cable and network programming. Less than a year on, it's axing over half of them.

YouTube injected $200 million into the project, which includes channels like The Onion and Jay-Z's Life and Times. Seems the rewards haven't been as forthcoming as they'd like: 60 percent are being axed, and YouTube will cream off 100 percent of incoming revenue from the ones that aren't renewed.